1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus such as a digital still camera or a digital video camera, and it also relates to an imaging control method that is used by the imaging apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
There is a special imaging technique called “follow shot” that is used for emphasizing fast speed of a vehicle or the like running in a car race or the like. Conventionally, the follow shot is performed by setting an exposure time that can generate necessary background blur in accordance with the speed of the moving subject such as a vehicle and by moving the imaging apparatus horizontally so as to pursue the moving subject. The operation of moving the imaging apparatus horizontally so as to pursue the moving subject requires much experience and professional skill.
There are various methods are proposed for obtaining the effect of the follow shot easily without such an operation. For example, one of the conventional methods detects the motion of the moving subject and changes the optical axis so as to pursue the moving subject in accordance with a result of the detection for obtaining the imaging effect of the follow shot.
Important thing in the imaging by the follow shot is the extent of blur generated in the background portion (although there is no clear definition of the extent of blur, a degree of blur of a background portion on a picture image will be referred to as a “flow blur degree” in this description). If the “flow blur degree” is too small with respect to a magnitude of a motion of the moving subject, the image expresses little speedy feeling. If the “flow blur degree” is too large, the image may become unnatural.
If the optical axis is changed so as to pursue the moving subject like the conventional method described above, the imaging effect of the follow shot will be obtained at least. However, in order to obtain a good imaging effect of the follow shot (e.g., in order to obtain a natural image with a speedy feeling), it is necessary to consider this “flow blur degree”.